City preparing for annual street maintenance

Work planned on Liberty Street to be done before Corn Fest

The city of Morris’ annual street maintenance program will soon begin improving streets throughout the city.

The Morris City Council Monday announced the pre-bid meeting and bid openings for next week for the street maintenance and crack filling and pavement marking projects.

Every year, the city does the street maintenance program and in the past has spent $600,000 to $1 million annually on street repairs and projects, said Mayor Richard Kopczick, after the meeting.

The city has budgeted about $600,000 for the work this year. Money for the work comes from the General Fund, Motor Fuel Tax Fund and the Tax Increment Financing Fund. The council Monday approved appropriating $200,000 from the Motor Fuel Tax Fund for the project.

“The city engineer has driven all of them and rated them with regards to deterioration and met with the chairman of the Street and Alley Committee and looked at what to budget,” said Kopczick.

The pre-bid meeting is set for 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 24, at the Morris Municipal Services Facility. Contractors have to attend this meeting to bid on doing the work for the city’s projects.

“This allows the contractors to ask any questions they have. Then, two days later, we will open the bids,” said the mayor.

Bids will be opened at 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 27, at the same location.

Some of the projects include resurfacing a large portion of Liberty Street, up to Washington Street. Other streets will have crack filling done to extend the life of the roads, said Kopczick.

“There are streets that will get an extra few years because it won’t allow water to get in, freeze, and crack,” he said.

Work is planned to begin in mid-August, he said. Liberty Street has to be completed before the Grundy County Corn Festival at the end of September.